Living House: Rural Heritage Reuse & Community Regeneration Pilot

Ecotopia Social Cooperative Enterprise is seeking European partners and/or an existing consortium interested in using our Living House pilot in Kalochori, Epirus, Greece, as a rural demonstration site within a New European Bauhaus or related European project.

The pilot concerns a vacant and deteriorated two-storey traditional stone house in the centre of a small depopulating village. The owner, a member of the Greek diaspora living in the United States, is supportive of Ecotopia’s proposed social and educational use of the property. Family history, oral testimonies and historical photographs have already been documented. The next steps are an architectural/engineering survey, technical assessment, property due diligence and development of the restoration and funding strategy.

Our preferred concept is to restore the building as a Living House: a non-commercial social, cultural and educational space providing temporary accommodation for volunteers, trainees, researchers and people exploring a transition from urban to rural life.

The Living House would combine accommodation with practical learning and participation in rural and community life, including household stewardship, small-scale food growing, traditional food preparation, seasonal activities, resource management and participation in Ecotopia’s Social Agropark of the Kalamas Valley.

The restoration process itself is intended to become a learning environment. We aim to combine professional conservation and engineering with the transmission of traditional building skills, including stone masonry, lime mortars and plasters, timber structures, traditional roofs, courtyards, terraces, water systems and other elements of vernacular rural architecture.

The pilot is part of the wider Ecotopia | Homes initiative, which explores how vacant or underused rural houses can be returned to active use through:

• owner and diaspora engagement;

• adaptive reuse and heritage-sensitive restoration;

• long-term stewardship arrangements;

• circular and low-impact building approaches;

• traditional-skills transmission;

• social and educational use;

• community participation;

• and pathways towards rural repopulation.

The project directly connects the New European Bauhaus principles of sustainability, beauty and togetherness. Rather than treating the building as an isolated renovation, we want to test a transferable model for linking rural building reuse with cultural heritage, social innovation, local skills, community regeneration and demographic transition.

What Ecotopia can contribute

Ecotopia can participate as a:

• rural pilot / demonstration site;

• community-based implementation partner;

• social-economy and civil-society actor;

• local stakeholder and property-owner connector;

• host for participatory research, co-design and training activities;

• test site for governance, stewardship and funding models for vacant rural buildings.

The pilot is embedded in wider local work, including our community café, Social Agropark, cultural and oral-history documentation, environmental activities in the Kalamas Valley and initiatives supporting rural revitalisation.

Partners sought

We are interested in cooperation with:

• universities and research organisations;

• architects and conservation specialists;

• structural and building engineers;

• organisations working on vernacular architecture and traditional crafts;

• circular and regenerative construction specialists;

• municipalities and territorial-development bodies;

• organisations working on rural depopulation and repopulation;

• social innovation and community-led development organisations;

• cultural-heritage organisations;

• organisations developing innovative ownership, stewardship or financing models for underused buildings;

• experienced Horizon Europe / NEB coordinators.

We are particularly interested in joining a consortium where the Kalochori Living House can serve as a real rural demonstration case alongside pilots in other European countries.